


Tall As An Oak, With Strong Roots

by untrustworthyglitch



Series: monster virgil [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, light body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16163063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untrustworthyglitch/pseuds/untrustworthyglitch
Summary: Virgil--tall, pale, sharp-toothed, and horrifying--loves his family, and they love him right back.A fic featuring former-dark-side!monster!Virgil and the acceptance he deserves.





	Tall As An Oak, With Strong Roots

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a while but here i am, finally updating what is now my favorite thing i've written! yes, i'm planning a third installment (and probably more after that tbh) but honestly, i have no idea when that'll come out, as i'm neck deep in this semester and am doing my best to avoid drowning. 
> 
> come find me at untrustworthyglitch.tumblr.com where i yell about youtubers and reblog pictures of cats!

“Virgil!” Roman yells from the kitchen, voice full of distress and desperation. Virgil throws down the book he’d been skimming and is on his feet in an instant. He ducks his head on instinct as he hurries into the kitchen, heart pounding, hands clenched tight enough for his long claws to prick into his pale skin.

“Roman?” he says. His voice sounds like a blade on gravel. He stands in the doorway, long thin limbs all tangled up in the fabric of his hoodie, and blinks at the scene before him.

Roman is standing in the kitchen. Roman is completely fine. Roman is holding a pickle jar. Roman has a look on his face like he’s about to ask a favor.

* * *

“Virgil, my darkling, could you be kind enough to open this jar for me?” he asks. He makes no move to step forward but rather holds out his hands, several feet away. It’s far too great a distance for human arms to reach, but Virgil heaves a put-upon sign and stretches out his bone-thin arms to grab at the jar with careful hands. His claws click against the glass as he brings the jar in close to his face, peering at it with a deadpan expression.

“Roman,” he says. He sounds more human now that the initial panic is fading, and he’s starting to not have to slouch so much to fit into the kitchen. “There is one pickle in this jar.”

“I know! It’s the last one! I have to eat it before Patton can get to it!” Roman says. He stomps his foot a little. It’s definitely not endearing, or at least, that’s what Virgil tells himself.

“Before Patton can get to what?” Patton says as he rises up from seemingly nowhere. Roman shrieks and Virgil startles so badly he nearly breaks the jar. 

“Nothing!” Roman says, 100% not suspicious at all, and Virgil quirks up one corner of his mouth in a smirk.

“There’s only one pickle left,” he says. Roman flails and makes a wordless sound of rage. Virgil raises the jar so that it catches the light and gestures with it in Patton’s general direction. 

“Ooh, gimme!” Patton half-shouts. He makes grabby hands and Virgil hands the jar over. It takes Patton all of three seconds to have the jar open, leaving Roman gaping in horror as he reaches in and fishes around for the last pickle. 

Logan sighs from the doorway. “You’re going to get pickle juice everywhere.”

“I know!” Patton laughs and shoves the pickle into his mouth whole. He tries to say something else, but it comes out so garbled that everyone, even Virgil with his hypersensitive hearing, is left blinking in bewilderment.

“Come again?” Logan says, slowly, as though he’s not sure he really wants the sentence to be repeated.

“I  _said_ ,” Patton says once his mouth is free, “that Virgil is taller than you!”

Virgil glances back at Logan, who is definitely a good few inches shorter than him, and then down at himself. He appears to be human. His limbs are the right size, skin not stretched tight over prominent bones, and his nails are short and bitten down to the quick. He runs his (regular, human) tongue over his (regular, human) teeth and blinks his (regular, human) eyes. Everything seems to be in order. 

“I don’t feel taller?” he says, by which he means  _I don’t feel like I’m shaking apart at the seems, I don’t feel like my bones are too big for my body, I don’t feel like a mess of edges and voids and fear._  He hopes the others get what he means, because absolutely no way in hell is he saying that out loud.

“You’re not consciously attempting to occupy your more inhuman form?” Logan asks, peering up at Virgil over the rims of his glasses. He has the same curious glint in his eyes that he’d gotten when he learned exactly how many teeth Virgil is capable of having, or that Virgil has perfect night vision, or that Virgil is about twelve feet tall on any given day. It’s mildly unsettling.

“I don’t think so?” Virgil says. He sounds normal. He feels normal.

Logan hums and frowns for a millisecond, but it’s not a judgmental or unhappy frown. It’s the frown that means he’s thinking. 

“Perhaps you’re doing it without realizing?” Roman guesses. “I often find myself daydreaming without ever intending to do so. Some of my most fantastic ideas were created by complete accident!”

“Or maybe you just feel safe enough with us to let yourself look like this without having to worry about it!” Patton suggests. He clasps his hands together and grins and deep down, Virgil knows he’s right.

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. Between one blink and the next, his eyes turn purple and his pupils become slits. A too-sharp grin blossoms across his gaunt face. There’s no fear or disgust on any of the others’ faces, and that sends a warm feeling through Virgil’s heart. He shoves it down for the sake of saying, “Or maybe it just feels nice to not be cooped up in my own skin for once.”


End file.
